Guide to the Ursula Wolff Schneider Papers and Photographs, 1923-1983

Collection number: MC 152
Size: 61 boxes
(20.00 cu.ft.)

About Ursula Wolff Schneider (1906-1977)

Ursula Wolff was born in Berlin, Germany on August 14, 1906, the daughter of renowned
Sanskrit scholar Dr. Fritz Wolff and Minna. When Ursula was twelve, her family moved
to the university town of Giessen. She completed her schooling at the age of 17, and
her parents placed her in the home of Leopold Sachse, the artistic director of the
Hamburg (Germany) Opera. In Sachse's house Ursula Wolff received room and board in
return for performing household chores. This arrangement also gave her the
opportunity to meet many of the leading musicians and artists of the time, including
Richard Strauss.

In the mid-to-late 1920s, Ursula Wolff spent two years in Berlin, Vienna, and Hamburg
working as an apprentice in photographers' studios and honing her talents. In 1928 -
at the age of 22 - she established her own studio, Foto Wolff Lichtbildwerkstatt,
and began working as a free-lance photographer. Ursula Wolff specialized in
photographing children, works of art, and architecture. In fact, her studies of the
Bauhaus style won her important recognition among many of Germany's premier
architects, including Karl Schneider, the man whom she subsequently married. Yet
despite her success in these endeavors, she was particularly interested in
photo-journalism - a medium that was just beginning to emerge in Weimar Germany. The
work she did for publications such as Hamburger
Illustrierte, Die Zeit im Bild, and
Hamburger Fremdenblatt, is directly linked to the
evolution of thematic photo-story made popular by the United States' Life magazine, France's Paris-Match and England's Picture
Post.

During her early years, Schneider's photo-journalism assignments were numerous and
varied, but - in the words of one reviewer - her typical theme revolved around "the
common people in their daily lives and struggles." For example, she photographed
Hamburg's school children, various festivals, contemporary fashions, the lives of
Hamburg's working class (chimney sweeps, firefighters, stevedores, butchers, bakers,
carpenters, postmen, streetcar drivers, etc...), weekends vacationing on the Baltic
Sea, life along the docks of Copenhagen, and travels through Southern France. In the
early 1930s she spent several months in Greece working with the art historian
Richard Tüngel, where she photographed ancient sculpture and architecture. The
images she produced for Tüngel are considered classics of their kind and are held in
the permanent collections of some of the world's finest museums and have appeared in
numerous textbooks.

Schneider emigrated to the United States with her husband in 1937, due to pressures
placed upon artists by Hitler and the National Socialists. The couple settled in
Chicago, Illinois close to Ursula's brother, Dr. Emanuel Wolff. She initially found
work as a medical photographer at the Michael Reese Hospital, a job she did not
particularly like. In 1942, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
offered her a position as Chief Photographer, which she accepted and held until her
partial retirement in 1973. During her years at the University of Chicago, her most
important achievement was the preparation and layout of Erich Schmidt's definitive
three-volume opus Persepolis, a work that took thirteen years to complete.
[See also Schneider's Persepolis and Ancient Iran]

On August 4, 1977 Ursula Wolff Schneider was killed in an automobile accident. When
looking through her personal effects, family members were surprised to find that
Schneider left behind a well-organized collection of negatives, prints, proof
sheets, slides, scrapbooks and manuscripts that documented virtually her entire
career as a photographer.

Schneider's work, although not well known, has been rediscovered since her death in
1977. Her photographs of the pre-World War II period are a significant record of the
society and culture of Weimar Germany, and they serve as an important example of
early photo-journalism. In the words of a reviewer for the Chicago Journal:

"Ursula Wolff Schneider photographed in the good, solid, early Bauhaus style. Her
images are beautiful in their own right, and also invite us to compare her to other
more familiar artists: David Seymour, Man Ray, Brassai, Cartier-Bresson, and
others."

One-Woman Exhibits:

Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany, 1933

Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, 1938

Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, 1941

Bergman Gallery, Chicago, 1977

Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, 1978

Staatliche Landesbildstelle Hamburg, Hamburg, 1979

The Putnam Arts Council, NY State, 1981

Ingber Gallery, New York, 1983

About the Ursula Wolff Schneider Papers and Photographs

The Ursula Wolff Schneider collection consists of more than 7,000 negatives as well
as hundreds of prints and proof sheets. The materials span the dates 1923 to 1976,
and a substantial portion of the collection focuses on her early work in Germany
(1928-1937). Subjects represented in the collection include: her work as a
photo-journalist for German newspapers (1930s), studies of Greek art and
architecture (1930s and 1960s), travels in Greece (1930s, 1966 and 1976), Guatemala
(October 1961), Italy (1930 and 1936), Mexico (1946), the United States
(1940s-1960s), and Yemen (1930-1931) as well as her commercial portrait work in
Germany and the United States.

This essentially photographic collection is further supplemented by manuscript
materials that document Schneider's life and work. The collection also contains
scrapbooks, clippings from publications within which Schneider's work appeared,
exhibit catalogs, and biographical information.

Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

This collection is open.

Copyright Notice

Contents of this collection are governed by U.S. copyright law. For questions
about publication or reproduction rights, contact Special Collections staff.

Collection Arrangement

The Ursula Wolff Schneider collection is organized by format and size then by the
catalog/image number assigned by the artist. For example: all 4 x 5 glass plate and
acetate negatives are located in boxes 3-10; all 5 x 7 negatives are housed in boxes
11-15; all 35mm negatives are in boxes 16-23; matted photographs are separate from
unmatted photographs; slides, negatives, photos, and proof sheets are all organized
separately. Consequently, the researcher may have to look in several different
locations in order to find the desired image.

Subseries C: Indices to Ursula Wolff Schneider's Photographs

Series 3: Images, 1928-1977

(48 Boxes)

Numbers in parentheses are those assigned by Wolff Schneider as indicated in
the catalog prepared by her brother, Dr. Emmanuel Wolff in 1986. English
translations of images with German titles are given inside brackets. For
images where there were no titles assigned by Wolff Schneider - these were
often simply marked "NA" in the catalog - descriptive titles have been
supplied by the Special Collections staff.

Sezession: Jury, lucky who can be hung [Sezession - artists
who broke from the academy supported art world; "lucky who can be
hung" - determination of whose work gets hung in the galleries]
(#3952-3969)

Series 4: Oversized Materials

(9 Oversize Boxes and 1 Portfolio)

Subseries A: Unmatted Photographs

Oversize Box 1

Oversize Box 1, Item 1

Schornsteinfeger [chimney sweep] (#2479)

Oversize Box 1, Item 2

Sezession: Jury, lucky who can be hanged [Sezession - artists
who broke from the academy supported art world; "lucky who can be
hanged" – determination of whose work gets hung in the galleries]
(#3954)

Oversize Box 1, Item 3

Sommer Ernte [summer harvest] (#4192)

Oversize Box 1, Item 4

"NA": sculptor making face mould (#3496)

Oversize Box 1, Item 5

No ID: Children with prams in a park (unnumbered)

Oversize Box 1, Item 6

Copenhagen (#2608)

Oversize Box 1, Item 7

Sezession: Jury, lucky who can be hanged [Sezession - artists
who broke from the academy supported art world; "lucky who can be
hanged" – determination of whose work gets hung in the galleries]
(#3955)

Sezession: Jury, lucky who can be hanged [Sezession - artists
who broke from the academy supported art world; "lucky who can be
hanged" – determination of whose work gets hung in the galleries]
(#3959)

Collage for newspaper article: "Seefahrt is not" [reference
to a German novel about seafaring/sailing; article is about a
children's toy boat sailing competition and lessons] (no assigned
number, 3 copies)